Such operations as those Rigou was concerned in require extensive collusion, like those we have seen existing in this arrondissement.  Lupin, the notary, whom Rigou employed to draw at least one third of the deeds annually entrusted to his notarial office, was devoted to him.  This shark could thus include in the mortgage note (signed always in presence of the wife, when the borrower was married) the amount of the illegal interest.  The peasant, delighted to feel he had to pay only his five per cent interest annually, always imagined he should be able to meet the payment by working doubly hard or by improving the land and getting double returns upon it.

Hence the deceitful hopes excited by what imbecile economists call “small farming,”—­a political blunder to which we owe such mistakes as sending French money to Germany to buy horses which our own land had ceased to breed; a blunder which before long will reduce the raising of cattle until meat will be unattainable not only by the people, but by the lower middle classes (see “Le Cure de Village.”)

So, not a little sweat bedewed men’s brows between Conches and Ville-aux-Fayes to Rigou’s profit, all being willing to give it; whereas the labor dearly paid for by the general, the only man who did spend money in the district, brought him curses and hatred, which were showered upon him simply because he was rich.  How could such facts be understood unless we had previously taken that rapid glance at the Mediocracy.  Fourchon was right; the middle classes now held the position of the former lords.  The small land-owners, of whom Courtecuisse is a type, were tenants in mortmain of a Tiberius in the valley of the Avonne, just as, in Paris, traders without money are the peasantry of the banking system.

Soudry followed Rigou’s example from Soulanges to a distance of fifteen miles beyond Ville-aux-Fayes.  These two usurers shared the district between them.

Gaubertin, whose rapacity was in a higher sphere, not only did not compete against that of his associates, but he prevented all other capital in Ville-aux-Fayes from being employed in the same fruitful manner.  It is easy to imagine what immense influence this triumvirate —­Rigou, Soudry, and Gaubertin—­wielded in election periods over electors whose fortunes depended on their good-will.

Hate, intelligence, and means at command, such were the three sides of the terrible triangle which describes the general’s closest enemy, the spy ever watching Les Aigues,—­a shark having constant dealings with sixty to eighty small land-owners, relations or connections of the peasantry, who feared him as such men always fear their creditor.

Rigou was in his way another Tonsard.  The one throve on thefts from nature, the other waxed fat on legal plunder.  Both liked to live well.  It was the same nature in two species,—­the one natural, the other whetted by his training in a cloister.

It was about four o’clock when Vaudoyer left the tavern of the Grand-I-Vert to consult the former mayor.  Rigou was at dinner.  Finding the front door locked, Vaudoyer looked above the window blinds and called out:—­